⁷ The way of the righteous is level;
    O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.
⁸ In the path of your judgements,
    O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and your renown
    are the soul’s desire.
⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night,
    my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgements are in the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁶ O Lord, in distress they sought you,
    they poured out a prayer^[a]
    when your chastening was on them.
¹⁷ Like a woman with child,
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near her time,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
¹⁸     we were with child, we writhed,
    but we gave birth only to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
    and no one is born to inhabit the world.
¹⁹ Your dead shall live, their corpses^[b] shall rise.
    O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
    and the earth will give birth to those long dead.^[c]